1MRI
Research Center and Beijing City Key Lab for Medical Physics, Peking
University, Beijing, China; 2Brain Research Imaging Center and
Department of Radiology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States

The thalamus plays an important role in brain
functions. Limitations of the previous studies on parcellation of the
thalamus lie in the determination of the number of subdivisions. Here, a
novel functional connectivity-based approach was obtained. Various cluster
solutions have been proposed and several indices were used to evaluate these
solutions. An optimal solution with relative high robustness, symmetry and
well hierarchy structure was obtained. Partial correlation was used to detect
cortical regions which were specifically functional connected to each
subdivision from the optimal solution. Correspondences to the anatomical
connectivity were revealed, which proved validity of our approach.